Male Team 04 - 10 Aug
Tour de Pologne
1013 Kilometers 7 Stages
Following a drastic change to its route scheme in 2017, with seven road stages and no time trials, the 75th Tour de Pologne will repeat its design for 2018, with most of its starts and finishes unchanged. The Langteam organisation group directed by Czesław Lang has also adapted to cycling’s modern times, with short stages all over its 2018 route -none of them exceeding 180km- and two well-differentiated parts for sprinters and punchy climbers alike.
Three flat finishes in Kraków (Saturday 4th), Katowice (Sunday 5th) and Zabrze (Monday 6th) will preceed the tremendous uphill finish in Szczyrk (Tuesday 7th), a Mur de Huy-esque climb but even harder than its Belgian counterpart, its 950 meters ramping up to 15 and even 17%. Before that, four other rated ascents will have been passed in the last 80km.
A day later (Wednesday 8th), the Przegibek climb (Cat-1; 6.6km with irregular gradients, from 4 to 8%) will be followed by a rolling circuit in Bielsko-Biała. Finally, two classic mid-mountain stages in the Tatr mountains, with gentle climbs combined with amazing slopes, will take the race’s curtain down in Bukowina (Thursday 9th + Friday 10th).